by Ron Carter
“You four get off those horses and tie the reins of your horse to the tail of the one next to you. You’ve got one minute. Make a break if you feel like it. It’s all the same to me if your leader goes down.”
The reins were quickly knotted in the long winter tails, and the four horses strung out in a line.
“Now hand the reins of the lead horse to your captain, and then the four of you run west. I’m going to watch you out of sight. Move!”
Five minutes later all four men had disappeared in the woods, and Eli turned to their leader, still sitting his horse, holding the reins of the lead horse in the string. His face was a study in venomous hatred.
Eli still held his cocked rifle trained on the man’s midsection. “Head due east and lead those horses. I’m right here beside you. Make a try for freedom whenever it suits you.”
The man stared at the muzzle of the rifle for a moment, then back at Eli’s eyes, and made his decision. He licked his lips, dug his spurs into the flanks of his horse, and the bunch started east at a trot, their breath streaming behind their heads as they plowed through the smooth field of white before them.
Eli paced the horses—trot, walk, trot, walk—to keep from sweating them in the frigid air. He stopped twice to let them catch their wind, both times remaining mounted with his rifle covering the bearded man with the epaulets.
It was midafternoon when the distant sound of axes reached them, and ten minutes later when they passed a neck of snow-covered oak trees, the west end of the Continental Army camp was before them. Men stopped to stare as Eli pushed on with his cocked rifle still trained on the man leading the four horses, across the bridge that spanned Valley Creek, and reined in at the command tent of General Washington.
The pickets gaped as Eli ordered his prisoner to dismount, then stepped down and walked him to the tent.
The taller picket was just under eighteen years of age, rawboned, feet wrapped in canvas. “Uh . . . who . . . what is your business here?”
“Tell General Washington that Eli Stroud is returning with messages from York. And a prisoner.”
“I . . . yes, sir.”
The picket dodged inside the flap and burst back out in ten seconds to hold the flap high. General Washington ducked to clear the opening and stepped into the brilliant, late afternoon, cold sunlight, followed by Hamilton and Laurens. The three men stared for a few moments at the strange assembly standing before them in ten inches of new snow, vapors rising from the heads of six horses and two men.
Washington broke the quiet. “Come in.”
The picket looked at Eli. “I . . . that rifle . . . I think I’m supposed to take the rifle.”
Eli uncocked it and handed it to the boy, then drew his tomahawk from his weapons belt, slipped the leather thong over his wrist to let it dangle, and gave his prisoner a nod. They followed Washington, Hamilton, and Laurens into the tent and stood before the table, waiting for Washington to speak.
Washington took his seat, Hamilton and Laurens at either side. “Report.”
Eli reached inside his coat and drew out an oilcloth packet. “I delivered the two messages to Henry Laurens. He sent back these two. One to you and one to his son.”
Washington accepted the packet and laid it on the table.
“Continue.”
“On the way back this man with four others stopped me. Said they were on scout from the Pennsylvania Militia camped here. They wore good coats, boots, and rode horses that were in good flesh. None of the five looked like they’d missed a meal. They were taking an interest in my rifle and my horse and saddle.” Eli looked at the prisoner, standing rigid, anger fairly dripping from him. “I asked him the name of his commanding officer. He didn’t give it. I took this one and turned the other four loose because I couldn’t bring in all five, but I brought their horses.”
Washington looked at the man for a time. “Can you name your commanding officer?”
The man’s face grew red as he stammered, then blurted. “Nash. General Nash.”
Washington’s voice was controlled. “Unfortunately General Nash died of wounds sustained at the battle of Germantown.” He turned to Laurens. “Have the pickets place this man under arrest.”
A wild look crossed the man’s face as though he would bolt for the entrance, and in that instant Eli grasped the handle of his tomahawk and turned to face him, feet spread, balanced, ready. The man froze, then slowly raised his hands, eyes never leaving the dreaded black tomahawk. Laurens quickly brought the pickets while Hamilton ran to get half a dozen more soldiers, and the eight of them left the tent with their bayonets high, their muskets cocked, and their prisoner locked between them.
Washington sat back down and waited for a few moments before he spoke.
“We’ve had reports from the local citizens that there are roving bands of robbers and thieves masquerading as our soldiers. They steal from anyone—the citizens, the British, our soldiers. Some have committed murder. I think you’ve just brought one in. He will be tried, and if he is such a man, he’ll be hanged.”
Eli slipped the tomahawk back in his weapons belt, with Hamilton and Laurens staring at it.
“You also brought in their horses?”
“Outside.”
Washington turned to Hamilton. “Do what you can to find out if any of those animals were stolen from local citizens. If anyone can support a claim, return the horse to him. If not, keep them for our officers.”
“Yes, sir.”
Washington turned back to Eli. “Is there anything else?”
Eli reflected for a moment. “Not that I can think of. You have the messages.”
Washington picked up the packet and opened it, then handed a sealed envelope to John Laurens. “Sir, that is for you from your father.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Washington turned back to Eli. “You are dismissed.”
Eli nodded, turned, and walked out of the tent, continuing steadily through the camp. With the sun setting, he slowed as he came to the Massachusetts regiment. He stopped at the hut his squad had been working on. The walls were raised and the rafters partly in place, ready for the roofing. He found Billy helping with the firewood for the evening fires and came in from behind him.
“You’ve been busy while I was gone.”
Billy turned. “We’re ready to roof.” He paused for a moment. “Mary’s here.”
Eli’s head jerked forward. “Where?”
Turlock came running as Billy continued.
“She’s billeted in a barn behind the house where the head surgeon is staying. His name’s Albigence Waldo. About a mile back to the west.”
Turlock cut in. “You go.”
“Is she all right?”
Billy answered, “She looks tired. Thin. But she can see you. Go on.”
“What’s the name of that surgeon?”
“Waldo. Albigence Waldo. Ask if you don’t find him.”
Without a word Eli handed his rifle to Billy, turned on his heel, and left at a run. He didn’t slow until he saw the stone house with the wagons at the side and the large stone barn behind, with the stables. He stopped at the door and pounded. A thin, sad-faced nurse opened it.
“What’s the commotion?”
“Ma’am, I’m looking for a woman named Mary Flint. A nurse. She’s supposed to be billeted in a barn behind a stone house where a surgeon named Waldo is staying.”
“Dr. Waldo is staying here. You must be talking about one of the nurses who arrived yesterday from Morristown.”
“Where are they?”
“In the stone barn behind the house.”
Without a word Eli sprinted around the house, angling toward the barn, when the door opened and a paunchy, balding man hurried out, walking rapidly toward the back door of the house. The man lifted his head at the sound of Eli running and raised a hand to stop him.
“This is a hospital. What’s your business here?”
“I’m looking for a nurse. Mary Flint.”
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Folsom’s eyes widened. “You’re Stroud?”
“I am. Is Mary here?”
“Young man, you follow me back to the barn, and you wait outside.”
Two minutes later Eli stopped, and Folsom walked into the dark interior of the barn. He left the door open.
Eli’s breath came short, and his heart was singing. She’s here, she’s here, she’s here.
As if by magic she was standing in the doorway. All she had planned, all she had dreamed of saying and doing when she saw him vanished. Everything he had thought, all he had expected to do was gone. For two full seconds they stood ten feet apart, staring in disbelief, and then Mary threw open her arms and ran to him, and he ran to her. He swept her into his arms, and they clung to each other in the golden glow of the sunset, knowing only that they were together, lost in the wonder of the touch and the feel of it. Mary tipped her head back to look into his face, and she reached to kiss him. In his life Eli had never kissed a woman, and for a moment he did not know what to do. Mary kissed him again, and he kissed her back, and they stood in the snow, wrapped in each other’s arms. For them the world was forgotten.
Standing just inside the darkened barn, Leonard Folsom quietly watched, remembering, seeing a girl named Emily that he had once held close and who had borne his children and grown old with him. He reached to wipe at his eyes and then closed the door.
Notes
The reader is familiar with Major Leonard Folsom, a doctor who brought his staff, including Mary Flint, and medical supplies from Morristown to find the Continental Army. Both Dr. Folsom and Mary Flint are fictional characters.
Hospital conditions at Valley Forge were deplorable. See Reed, Valley Forge: Crucible of Victory, pp. 13–14, 25.
Eli Stroud’s meeting with the five men on his return to Valley Forge is included to inform the reader that there were robbers and murderers roving the farms and roads in and around Pennsylvania. They called themselves “volunteers” and blamed their plundering on the Continental Army. Washington issued orders to arrest them when possible. The Doane Gang of Bucks County and the gang led by a man named Fitzpatrick—“Captain Fitz”—in Chester County were notorious. Captain Fitz was caught and hanged. See Reed, Valley Forge: Crucible of Victory, pp. 15–16.
Valley Forge
Early January 1778
CHAPTER XXII
* * *
Thick ice covered the Schuylkill River, bank to bank. Men swung axes three times a day to reopen holes for fresh water. Eight inches of snow was frozen to a crystallized powder that crunched and squeaked beneath the feet of the soldiers and the wagon wheels. When the wind blew, it moaned in the chimneys, and when it did not, deathly silence ruled the nights. The twelve-man squads that shared the huts kept the fires burning in the fireplaces around the clock, huddled close, wrapped in whatever they could find. The green firewood smoldered, filling the crude, unfinished huts with smoke that made the soldiers squint and wipe at their watering eyes, enduring the pain to absorb what little warmth they could.
The thousands who had no blankets used what they could find to cover themselves at night, including the few canvas summer tents that had survived. No squad had enough shoes or trousers or coats or shirts to stand guard duty, and they had learned to give the best they had to the man leaving to take his two-hour shift, hunched over from cramps in his empty belly, shivering in the deep, bitter cold. When that man returned, he stripped off all he had and handed it to the next man going out to stand picket, then wrapped himself in a blanket to crouch near the smoking fire, shivering, teeth chattering, coughing, eyes watering. If he had no shoes, a man endured his two-hour picket duty standing on a felt hat to keep his bare feet from freezing to the ground. Toes turned black, then putrid, and every day surgeons laid men on rough-sawed wooden tables in homes or barns or log cabins that were called hospitals. They gave them half a cup of whiskey to dull their senses, strapped them down, thrust a leather belt between their teeth, and used scalpel and saw to remove the dead member while the men writhed and groaned. When the surgeons ran out of scalpels, they turned to the razors used to shave.
At five minutes past midnight, Sergeant Randolph O’Malley pushed through the plank door of the hut he shared with his squad and closed it quickly. His red beard and sandy-red hair and eyebrows were white with frost. He leaned his musket against the wall and stepped around two of his men wrapped in blankets, sitting cross-legged close to the fireplace, and leaned forward to thrust out his hands until they were nearly in the flames. No one spoke.
After a time, O’Malley turned to peer toward Caleb Dunson, lying in a lower bunk against the south wall, completely hidden beneath a canvas tent he had folded twice to lay under for cover. Caleb’s head appeared, and he raised on one elbow.
“Your duty,” O’Malley said and untied the old gray scarf he had tied over his head to keep his ears from freezing. He shrugged out of the threadbare woolen coat each man wore as he went to stand his time. He shivered as he sat down to untie his shoes and toss them onto the hard-packed dirt floor beside Caleb’s bunk. The shoes were old and battered and too large for O’Malley, and there was a hole in the sole of each. The men had cut and laid a piece of old harness leather inside to cover the holes.
The only light in the shelter was from the fireplace, where green wood smoldered and smoked and hissed, casting the room in a dim pall. O’Malley sat down and began rubbing his numb feet, peering intently to see if any of his toes were turning black.
Caleb shuddered as he pulled his stockings up, then reached for the shoes. His stockings had holes in both toes and both heels and gave no warmth inside the worn, hard-leather shoes. He slipped his feet in carefully to avoid moving the piece of harness leather that plugged the holes, then reached for the coat. He looped the scarf over his head and tied it beneath his chin, stepped around men to reach the door, and picked up his musket. Without a word he walked out into the frozen night, feeling the searing grab in his lungs. He clamped his mouth shut and breathed shallow as he headed for the river.
Overhead a brilliant quarter-moon and a million frozen diamonds turned the camp and the woods into a world of black and gray shadows. He had not gone ten paces when he felt the cold coming through his shoes and his face turning numb. Vapor streamed behind as he marched on toward the river, the snow creaking with each step.
His sentry post was a place less than fifty yards from the frozen Schuylkill, beneath a great pine tree where the men had cleared away most of the snow, down to the rock-hard dirt. He leaned his musket against the tree and backed up to the trunk, arms wrapped about himself for the little warmth it would bring, and began the torturous two-hour wait in the dead silence. His feet grew numb, and he moved them and slapped his arms about his chest to keep the blood flowing. He reached to rub his face until feeling came back and again stamped his feet until the numbness was gone and feeling returned.
Minutes that seemed an eternity crept by, and he found his mind wandering to places of more comfort and to happier scenes. His mother—the hearth and fire in their small Boston home—a table laden with roast mutton and steaming potatoes—the pungent aroma of mince pies baking—little Trudy with her plain face and shy smile—Matthew at the door—Brigitte at the church—old Silas thrusting a finger into the air as he preached from the raised pulpit—
Drowsiness came, and it frightened him. Since Christmas four men had grown drowsy on picket duty and sat down to let it pass. The warmth had come, and they had drifted into a peaceful sleep. They were found still sitting, frozen stiff.
He judged that one hour had passed before he allowed the thought and the question to take shape in his mind. Will she come again tonight? Three times in the last seven days she had appeared in the darkness, bundled in a coat and a hooded cape, to bring him something warm and to talk for a few moments. He let himself think her name—Nancy—Nancy—and he brought her face up as though she were there. The auburn hair, the green eyes, the smiling mouth, and he knew he had never seen a fa
ce as beautiful.
Will she come? Will she?
The creak of footfalls in the snow and the whisper came at the same moment. “Caleb?”
He peered into the darkness, searching. “I’m here.”
She came to him, a shape wrapped in a hooded cape, dark against the snow, and she stopped, her face turned upward.
“I brought you something hot. Tea.” She brought her hands from beneath the heavy cape. “Here.” She handed him a pewter jar.
He took it between his hands and felt the warmth. “You shouldn’t have come—it’s so cold.”
“Drink it while it’s warm.”
He pried off the lid and saw the steam rise, then raised it to sip. It was rich and sweet, and he sipped again. “So good. Thank you.”
She stood silent for a time, watching him savoring the tea. “We have so many men coming to the hospital. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Frozen feet and ears. Pneumonia. Scabs. So much sickness. I think the doctor fears an epidemic. Smallpox. The fever.”
Caleb looked down into her face. “I worry about you in that hospital. Are you well?”
“Tired. Not sick. Just tired.”
“You should be back there. Not out here. You need your rest.”
She lowered her gaze. “I can’t stay there. I lie awake. It helps to get away. To come here.”
Caleb felt his heart leap within. To come here! To be near him! She could not have said it more clearly. He fumbled for words, but none would come.
She raised her face once more, and the moonlight defined her eyes and her mouth. “Do you mind? Should I not come?”
He lowered the jar of tea. “You should come. I want you to.”
She reached to lay her hand on his arm and then stepped close, face turned upward, looking him full in the face. She stood on tiptoes and brushed a kiss, then stepped back. “I . . . Caleb, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”
He reached and drew her against him, and he kissed her, and then held her close for a time, her arms about his neck, his cheek on hers.